Surfin' Bird (album)

Surfin' Bird
Cover of the 1964 LP by Garrett Records.
Studio album by
The Trashmen
ReleasedJanuary 14, 1964[1]
RecordedKay Bank (Minneapolis, Minnesota)[2]
GenreSurf rock, garage rock
LabelGarrett Records
ProducerGeorge Garrett

Surfin' Bird is the debut studio album by the Trashmen, released on January 14, 1964. It was named after their novelty hit of the same name. The album peaked at No. 48 at the Billboard 200 chart.[3]

The album was recorded at Kay Bank Studios and rushed to the stores to capitalize on the success of the "Surfin' Bird" single, released two months earlier.[2] According to Rick Shefchik's book Everybody's Heard about the Bird, which chronicles the band's rise and fall, both the Surfin' Bird album and the single each went on to sell over a million copies.[4] Richie Unterberger of AllMusic, who gave the album 4.5 stars out of 5, wrote that it "actually outstrips most of the Southern California-based competition, due to the ferocious grit of the playing and a vaguely demented, go-for-broke recklessness."[5]

  1. ^ Shefchik, Rick (2015). Everybody's Heard about the Bird: The True Story of 1960s Rock 'n' Roll in Minnesota. University of Minnesota Press. p. 148. ISBN 9781452949741.
  2. ^ a b Shefchik (2015), p. 119+137: "The Trashmen recorded exclusively at Kay Bank Studio in 1963–1964" (link); "In the meantime, Soma rushed The Trashmen back to Kay Bank Studio to record an album" (link).
  3. ^ "The Trashmen | Billboard Albums". AllMusic. Archived from the original on December 28, 2010.
  4. ^ Shefchik (2015), p. 139–140 + 148 (link).
  5. ^ Unterberger, Richie. "Surfin' Bird - The Trashmen". AllMusic. Archived from the original on January 6, 2013.